Sea Dragon
by MerindaKalene
Summary: The Dragonborn receives a dream-vision from the God Akatosh. She takes to the Throat of the World one last time, settling into her tomb to wait out the ages. The frozen tundras of Skyrim have long since transformed into the desert kingdom of Alabasta by the time she awakens, and in the wake of war, a young pirate captain recruits her into his crew.
1. Chapter 1

_**"The Age of Nirn is coming to a close."**_

Hearing Akatosh speak these words made the Dragonborn's blood run cold. Her hands shook as she balled them into fists at her side, cold sweat beaded at her brow and her eyes were white-rimmed in shock.

"What do you mean?" Her voice ought to have been shaking as badly as she was, but her words came steadily despite the tension. "I defeated Alduin. I defeated Vyrthur, Harkon and Miraak. After all of that, how can the world _still_ be in danger?"

 _Was it all for nothing?_

 _ **"Do not misunderstand, Dragonborn."**_ Akatosh gazed upon her, his two faces focusing on her out of the corners of their eyes—were they really looking at her, though? It was so hard to tell when his eyes seemed to be made of molten gold and light. _**"It is not disaster that brings an end to this age. No great threat shall befall the mortal world for many eons to come. This age ends not with devastation, but with change."**_ The twin-faced God of Time spread his arms wide, and the distant, metallic echo of his voice boomed across her mind and the vast, empty whiteness that surrounded them in all direction. The only other sound was the soft shifting of sand as it flowed in streams that defied reason—up or down, some diagonally, some twisting like rivers in the air, as they moved into and out of the nothingness just out of sight. _**"It is**_ _ **because**_ _ **of your efforts that this change will come. With the coming of my First Born, all of Nirn was to be devoured, so a new world could form in its' place. But now, it has been given the chance to grow into something new, something beyond what any of us would have predicted, and grow it shall."**_

"Why tell me this, then? If the world isn't at risk of destruction, then…" Knowing that her world wasn't about to be destroyed lifted a weight from her chest, but this still left more questions than answers. Akatosh couldn't be relaying this message to her purely to _inform her_ that things were changing; the Divines did not directly interfere with mortals and their affairs save for the direst of situations. Unless this grand change and growth was swift and sweeping, she could likely go her whole life without ever knowing the difference, things would just go on as normal.

 _ **"Any future that this world reaches is beyond even**_ _ **our**_ _ **knowing, and the Scrolls**_ _ **cannot**_ _ **show how far it will continue to go. But we do know this: whatever future lays ahead, you are meant to be a part of it. You are Dragonborn, and you are Shezzarine. The future is yours."**_

She woke then, knowing what she had to do. She composed farewell letters to her friends and housecarls, saying she would soon be leaving Skyrim and would not be returning. She had previously granted her various housecarls the house she owned in each respective hold; the houses belonged to them, all she had asked was that they keep a guest room available for when she stopped by in those cities. Apart from Breezehome—it had been her first house, and her base of operations for most of her time in Skyrim—which she now left to Lydia.

The Nord woman put up her best stoic front, but the truth slipped through the crack in her voice. "I would go with you, my thane." Those simple words held all of Lydia's desperation to keep her thane—whom Lydia had come to view as a sister of sorts in the years they spent traveling together—from going where she could not follow. It felt too much like when she'd been flown off to Skuldafn for the final confrontation with Alduin, and Lydia had been forced to remain behind and worry and wait for her Dragonborn to return. Her gut was twisting uncomfortably as that feeling returned.

"I know you would, Lydia," her thane smiled, sad and understanding. "If I could take you with me, I would," she'd said that before, and they both felt the pang, "but I won't be able to return to Skyrim when I leave this time, and I wouldn't want you to walk away from the home you've made here."

"But you're fine walking away from the home _you've_ made?" She hadn't wanted to sound so bitter, and she regretted it for the sadness she saw in her thane's eyes, though her smile didn't falter.

"I have to be. This is what I have to do."

Lydia's stoicism broke, and they pulled each other into a tight embrace, quietly crying their goodbyes.

Her last order of business before leaving Whiterun for good was to inform the rest of the Circle of her departure. It came as a great, sudden shock to everyone that she was leaving. Aela recovered from the news the fastest, but was disappointed that their Harbinger had turned her eyes to the horizon so young. Vilkas was at a loss for words, his eyes falling forlornly to the floor, and Farkas had tears welling up in his eyes. She had been particularly close with the twins, and they probably felt as though she were abandoning them.

"Come on, you guys, it breaks my heart to see you looking so down. It's not like I'm dying."

"Then why do you say you won't be coming back?" Vilkas's temper was beginning to show, but she knew that it was only because he didn't want her to see how sad he was.

"Honestly, the truth is so beyond belief, I doubt anyone would believe me." She spent the next ten minutes trying to convince them that this was just something she had to do, but none of them were willing to accept such a vague answer. She eventually caved and told the three of them that Akatosh had sent her a dream-vision the night before sending her on a specific quest. "Quit giving me that look, guys, I know it sounds preposterous."

While their disbelief that one of the Divines had made such contact with a mortal was understandable, they soon accepted that such a thing must have been a result of being Dragonborn. It made it easier for them to accept her leaving, even though she couldn't share the details of her Gods-given quest—well, she could, as there was nothing truly stopping her, but playing out in her mind how she might explain it, she couldn't come up with a way that didn't make her sound pompous or grandstanding. Better to leave it open ended.

They desperately tried to put off goodbyes, but the longer it lasted, the deeper the knife dug. "It's been an honor to fight at your sides all these years, and it's been a privilege to have had you in my life." Those words were what broke Farkas, and as he crushed her against his armor in a tight hug, she could hear him sniff back a sob.

"We're all gonna miss you, sister."

"I know. I'm going to miss all of you, too." She wrapped her arms as far around his large form as best she could, her hands rubbing comfortingly at his back.

Perhaps the second hardest part of this affair was the fact that they would need a new Harbinger, but none of the other members of the Circle felt it was their place to take up the mantle. In the end, she left the leadership of the Companions jointly in the hands of all three of them, at least until they'd be able to find someone they deemed suitable. The three seemed reluctant, unsure if the three of them could effectively keep the group going, collectively, though it took only a little reassurance. Farkas had such a big heart, and his compassion kept the others grounded, Vilkas was driven and had an eye for detail and organization that others lacked, and Aela had ferocity enough for the lot of them—though certainly none of them were lacking in that department.

It hurt to know that this was the last time she would see her friends—any of her friends—ever again, and it made her question if this quest was worth what she was giving up. She had left a life behind once before, when she first left Cyrodiil for Skyrim, but it wasn't the same. She had significantly less to give up then than she did now. No one was happy to see her go, and she wasn't happy to be leaving, but the farther she got from the gates of Whiterun, the clearer her mission became in her mind. Nevermind the tears that fell from her eyes once there was no one around to see her shed them.

She made her way to Ivarstead, and then up the mountain to High Hrothgar. The Greybeards seemed to be expecting her, and she told Arngeir freely of her dream-vision and the mission Akatosh had left her with. She didn't know how Akatosh intended for her to reach this future intact, but she knew that the way lay at the height of the Throat of the World. Arngeir had mixed feelings about the news, though this wasn't surprising, as he'd been so willing to accept the coming of the end the first time around when the threat of Alduin still loomed. But, he had also developed a sense of pride in the young Dragonborn these last few years, and there was a certain sense of accomplishment in knowing that she had thwarted disaster so many times that the world was essentially in the clear for the foreseeable—and unforeseeable—future. All the same, he and the other Greybeards wished her well, in their way, and left her with a few tomes to take with her. She had packed light for the journey, taking only those things she felt she couldn't do without, so there was room enough in her pack for them.

When she made her way to the summit, she found that Paarthurnax already knew the story, because of course he did, but she was tired from the trip and was glad she didn't have to explain it again, so she didn't question it. But as she gazed upon this… sarcophagus before her, just there below the broken Word Wall where Paarthurnax had taught her the first Word of her Fire Breath shout, she felt an uncomfortable weight settle in her gut. Her gaze fell first to her feet, buried in snow, then to the elder dragon who perched upon the wall as he had when they first met.

" _Lok ni paaz?_ What troubles you, Dovahkiin?" Her worry must have shown on her face. But maybe not, as Paarthurnax was a perceptive old dovah.

She smiled her sad smile but held back her tears. At this altitude, any tears would freeze in her eyes before they could spill.

"I'm sorry, Paarthurnax. I should have come to visit you more often than I did." She was a sentimental person, and Paarthurnax had become a sentimental dragon during his long years, and now he promised to watch over her for however many long years he had left. For a dragon, time was meant to have no meaning, but with this unknown, far-flung future that now presented itself, eternity was looking a lot longer than it used to.

Laying down in her tomb, settling in against the light stone—despite the chill of the snow and the wind, it was warm to the touch—with her pack at her side, her heart raced in her chest. The shimmering veil of the aurora dancing overhead helped to calm her, though. The pale blues and purples were one of her favorite sights when she looked up at the clear night skies, and she was grateful that it was the last thing she saw as the lid slid closed above her and she began to dream. She dreamed of her little tomb, there in the mountain snow, and her gaze pulled back, until she was viewing the mountain from miles away, juxtaposed against the night sky. She felt herself moving, being pulled upward, until she was looking down upon the world from the void of space, and rings of flame danced into and out of her vision—was she looking down from the center of a star? —as the world began to turn, faster and faster.

The world spun ever onward, ever faster, and she began to comprehend as she saw continents shatter, split, rise from and sink into the sea that this was the passage of eons. Landmasses shifted to and fro, some splitting and drifting off to become islands, others colliding together and driving up mountain ranges to heights that easily equaled the Throat of the World, or rather where it had once been. Gods only knew how much time had passed before the world began to slow, and she certainly had no concept of how long she had been dreaming. Had Nirn always been so big? A strip of land stretched north and south around the world like a ring, the only solid continent on the planet, with islands of varying sizes dotting the vast oceans.

Eventually the world slowed to a normal pace, and her focus fell upon an island near the equator. She felt herself being pulled back towards the world once more, and soon she was close enough to see the island was largely covered in sand. _But hadn't I been in the far north before?_ She thought she had, though it was hard to remember where you really were in the world while you were dreaming. Pulling in closer, so found herself viewing a grand city that sat atop a mesa. She saw masses of people in the streets, heard the clamoring and the shouting and the clashing of steel.

 _Ah, I remember war._

Her vision then plunged downward through the ground, just as sand and stone erupted upward. As she sank further down, she saw the stone chambers, reminiscent of the many Nord burial tombs she'd delved into before. She noticed that she was descending through a hole that had been broken through several floors, dust and small chunks of stone falling along with her. She stopped just above the last hole, seeing solid stone on the other side, then she turned, gazing about this room until she spotted a familiar slab of white stone.

 _I didn't stop to notice before, but my sarcophagus is quite beautiful._

The slab that comprised the lid was emblazoned with the Akaviri symbol for Dragonborn, like she had first seen at the entrance to Skyhaven Temple. Across the rest of the sarcophagus was text inscribed in Dovahzul, the script appeared untouched by the rigors of time. A quick glance over suggested it told the legend she had cultivated. As she seemed to float over her resting place and looked towards the ceiling, she thought she heard a voice call out somewhere, but her senses clouded as she sank down to rejoin her physical form, and she couldn't make out the words. Her world went dark, and for a few moments, she knew peaceful rest.

At long last, she felt warm air graze her skin, and her eyes began to drift open. She flexed her fingers and toes, felt the leaden sludge begin to flow out of her limbs as her sight began to focus. Three blood-stained faces gazed down at her in wonder, one belonged to a woman, another to a young boy, and the last to man with the first strands of grey beginning to show in his beard.

"Hey," the boy blinked owlishly at her, "are you actually alive?"

"Last I checked," she croaked out, throat dry and voice hoarse from sleep. She let out a cough that pushed her into sitting upright. The older man and the woman said something to each other that she didn't catch, but then they both looked back to her.

"Excuse me, _uh,_ miss," the man addressed her, though he seemed to almost stumble on calling her 'miss,' "but, what is your name?"

"My—" She coughed once more, trying to clear the rough dryness from her throat. "My name is Lee."

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you all for reading! This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction in a long time, and my first dedicated attempt at a crossover. I've been working on this story for about a month, but between moving to a different city and only just recently getting internet set up at the new place, I've only now had to chance to upload this. Special thanks to dukefan01 for being cool with me using the beginning of their own fic, _The Dragonborn Straw Hat_ as inspiration for the beginning of this story. Reviews feed my soul, so please don't be afraid to leave one, a criticism, or even just a comment on how awesome or terrible you thought the chapter was. Chapter 2 is already in the works and nearly done, so expect that up in the coming days/sometime next week. Pairings are as yet undecided, but I will be taking down notes on fan favorites, so if you have a preferred ship for Lee down the road, be sure to let me know as the story progresses.**


	2. Chapter 2

At long last, Crocodile was defeated. King Cobra had watched in awe as this young pirate, Luffy, pummeled the Warlord with bloody fists and sent him up through the layers of stone that comprised the catacombs floors in a barrage of punches. Light began to filter through the falling dust and debris, and Luffy fell back to the ground with a heavy crash.

"Through all that stone…" The boy's strength was remarkable, and the king almost got caught up in marveling at it, but the sound of stone continuing to crumble around them drew him back. "Hey! Are you alright?!" He moved and knelt beside Luffy, when he spotted a small glass phial rolling across the floor towards him.

"Quickly, use that. It'll neutralize the poison from Crocodile's hook." Nico Robin sat slumped against a nearby wall, looking more than a little worse for wear from the wound she'd received from Crocodile. He picked up the phial but fixed her with a suspicious look.

"You looked me straight in the eye and told me that the only thing written here was history," he said after a moment, and she averted her eyes. "Why did you lie to me?"

"You knew? How cruel…"

"This country's history isn't written anywhere in there. Instead, it has everything about the weapon you wanted to get your hands on. The description, location…" Cobra uncorked the phial and lifted Luffy's head to pour the contents down his throat. "It doesn't make any sense. If you had given Crocodile this information, Alabasta would be his for the taking right now. Isn't that right?" He gently laid Luffy back down, as Nico Robin leaned her head back against the wall and let her eyes fall shut.

"I don't care whether the people of this country live or die. I had decided from the start not to give Crocodile the weapon." Cobra's look turned from suspicion to perplexity.

"I don't understand… Then why did you come here?"

"I don't really know anymore… Chasing a dream, I suppose." She seemed so resigned. It felt awkward to see Crocodile's former right-hand woman being so vulnerable. "The last remaining poneglyph in the world that still carries… the true history… The Rio Poneglyph…"

"What do you mean 'the _true_ history?'" Nico Robin spoke like these words would be her last, but it only left Cobra with more questions. But now she cast her eyes to the poneglyph in the other room, visible through the shattered wall.

"… Nothing. It doesn't matter anymore. Twenty years I've searched, and I've never had a better lead than this. This was my last hope, and it didn't work out. So if I'm going to die here, it's the perfect time." The stonework seemed to agree with her, as dust began to rain down nearby from a crumbling support beam. "I'm tired of this fool's crusade…" A large chunk of stone fell only a few feet away, casting up a cloud of dust like a warning. It did well to hide the tears forming in Robin's eyes, if only for a few moments. "All I wanted was to learn our true history… and share it with the world…"

"You're saying it's possible our lost history could be uncovered, and the poneglyphs are the keys to unlocking these records?" Cobra stood and turned to her fully, a look of disbelief on his face, and a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "You mean… All this time…"

Robin had a small, mysterious smile pulling on her lips, like she'd had when the king first saw her. The smile fell away in a moment and her eyes darted to look over Cobra's shoulder as Luffy rose silently to his feet. He was covered in blood and for a moment Robin pondered that there was no way the antidote could have worked that fast. She pondered only for a moment, though, as it was only the next moment that Luffy scooped the king up under one arm—the man was grateful there was no one else around to witness that—and slung Robin over the other shoulder.

"Kay, let's go." He immediately turned to leave the crumbling structure. Robin's immediate protests fell on deaf ears. She was going to live at least long enough to get out of this tomb, whether she liked it or not, but what she did after that was her own business. He began heading for the exit but froze when he heard an odd sound that drew his eyes up to the hole he'd made, and he felt Robin and Cobra stiffen in his grip. "Did you guys hear that…?"

"It sounded like… something breathing?" Robin's eyes followed Luffy's up. The sound had been so soft, like a sigh, but was distinctly noticeable even over the groaning of the stonework.

Luffy switched his hold on his two passengers so he was holding them both with only one arm. His other hand, now free, stretched to pull them up into the next floor. This one seemed more stable, as no cracks had yet formed in the walls and ceiling, save for the area where Luffy had broken through. This room was mostly dark, with only enough light spilling in to see a vague white shape a few feet away.

"It was definitely in here," Luffy mused, setting down Cobra and Robin so he could look around. Robin moved to examine the corner of white stone that was visible, having to feel around for a moment before she could properly identify it.

"This is—" In the same moment she's begun to speak, Cobra found a torch sconce on the wall and lit it. The three jumped as the room became bathed in the orange light, the flame quickly spreading from one torch to the next in either direction around the room. There in the center was revealed a magnificent white stone sarcophagus, and behind it a freestanding wall of grey stone. Both stood in stark contrast against the sandstone that the rest of the mausoleum had been constructed from.

"It can't be…" King Cobra's words came out barely more than a whisper, but the others heard him clearly in the quiet of the chamber. The rumbling of the collapsing tombs sounded so distant in here.

"What can't it be?" Luffy tilted his head quizzically at the king as the man slowly approached the sarcophagus and reached out a hand to trace the emblem that rose from the surface of the lid.

"An ancient legend, from the old kingdom that came before Alabasta, and who knows how long even before that…" The king's words piqued Robin's and Luffy's interest, and for a moment they all forgot about their wounds. "I'd heard tell that this tomb was here in the mausoleum, but the way here was lost generations ago when a previous king died before passing on the secret to his heir."

"What legend?"

"The Last Dragonborn, supposedly they were a hero from prerecorded history." Cobra spoke with a sense of quiet wonderment, and Robin could see his fingers trembling ever so slightly. "The story's been largely forgotten by the people, but there are still some old tomes in the royal library with information. This symbol was on the cover…"

"This sarcophagus is in such pristine shape, especially for the age you say it is," Robin commented, kneeling to examine the inscription along the sides, running a hand over the odd symbols. Many of the 'letters' repeated and were strung together in 'words' of varying length, which told Robin that this was an actual written language and not random chicken-scratch. "It's cold as ice… And I can't make out these inscriptions. What more can you tell us about this Dragonborn?"

"Honestly, some of the feats they were said to have performed sound pretty out of this world, even by Grand Line standards," Cobra admitted. "The main bulk of the tale goes that the Dragonborn was a wandering warrior, scholar and adventurer who saved the world from a beast called the World Eater."

"Sounds awesome," Luffy chimed in with a determined grin stretched across his face, "like the kind of person I'd want on my crew!"

A flickering shadow behind the nearby wall temporarily drew Cobra and Robin's attention away from the sarcophagus, but it was enough for Luffy to brace his hands against the lid—it really was cold to the touch—and give a mighty heave. The scraping of stone on stone made Cobra and Robin whip back around, nearly shouting at Luffy as the lid collapsed to the floor with a solid _thud._ They expected a corpse, and the musty odor of long decayed flesh, but what greeted them was the body of a person who looked as though they had just laid down to rest, and a gust of crisp air with a scent that reminded Luffy of when he scaled the Drum Rockies.

The body—they now saw belonged to a woman—was clothed in thick, blue woolen robes lined with fur, with heavy boots on her feet and fur-lined gloves on her hands. The attire was so out of place for someone in a desert kingdom that they almost missed the rising of her chest as she drew in a breath. Almost. The king and archaeologist stared in astonishment as she slowly flexed her fingers and opened her eyes, the firelight reflecting gold in her irises.

Luffy, on the other hand, seemed more curious than awestruck. "Hey, are you actually alive?"

"Last I checked." Her voice was rough like someone who'd been far too long without water, and she began coughing to clear her throat and lungs, forcing herself upright in the process. The three spotted the travel pack and the weapons that had been laying in the sarcophagus beside her; an ornate, white-gold bow and shield, and two swords—one a straight, double edged blade with a circular handguard, the other a katana.

"Cobra," Robin addressed the king quietly, pulling him aside for a moment, "do you believe this is the Dragonborn from the legend?"

"I don't know," Cobra muttered lowly, looking back at the woman they'd found. "If she is, I can't begin to fathom how she's still alive after so long…" He and Robin turned back to her as her coughs subsided, and Cobra had to momentarily deal with the awkwardness of how to address an ancient, _living_ legend. "Excuse me, _uh,_ miss, but, what is your name?"

"My—" Her voice caught in her throat, and she gave one more cough to finish clearing it. "My name is Lee."

"This tomb has sat undisturbed for… _centuries,_ at least," Cobra remarked as he stepped close once again and offered the Dragonborn—Lee—a hand to get her out of the sarcophagus. "How have you survived down here for so long?"

"As far as I can tell? Divine intervention." Lee accepted his help, pulling herself out of her resting place. With her rescuers (finders?) now in better view, she discovered that each of them was badly injured. "You're all wounded, what happened to all of you?" This place didn't look quite like the Nord burial tombs she'd been into before, but she wondered if they'd faced traps or undead getting to her.

"A man named Crocodile just attempted a coup on this country," Robin began to explain, but she didn't get much farther, before Luffy gave an astounded shout. While they'd been preoccupied, Luffy had gone to examine the shadow that Robin and the king had spotted previously.

"Whoa! You guys gotta come see this!"

And come see, they did. When all four were gathered on the other side of the Word Wall—Lee had marveled for a moment that the same stone that had previously sat atop a mountain was now deep within a tomb—their mouths all fell agape. There, curled up just out of view of anyone that would have entered the tomb, was a massive skeleton the likes of which only Lee had seen before. The dragon's skull was easily longer than any of them were tall, and the body looked to have been nine or ten times as long were it stretched out properly.

"Is that a…"

 _"Paarthurnax…"_ Lee's voice came out a barely audible whisper as she stepped forward and knelt before the skull, reaching to gently touch one of the many short, spiny protrusions along the skull's lower jaw. _It looks just like a beard,_ she had commented with a broad grin to the old dragon back when they had first met. _I guess 'Greybeards' was an appropriate name for you guys after all!_

" _Tiid bo amativ, wuth fahdoni."_

"Hey, are you alright?" Luffy asked, concerned. "Did you know whatever those bones belonged to?"

"Paarthurnax was… was an old friend of mine, and a mentor of sorts," Lee explained without looking away. But her voice shook just so much as she spoke. "Just before I went into that sarcophagus, he promised he'd watch over me… He really knew how to keep his word."

Even as Lee tried to maintain good humor, the others could tell she was grieving. Robin looked ready to say something, but a sundering _crack_ drew them all sharply out of the moment. The walls to the chamber shuddered and split. A segment of floor near the corner of the room fell away into the passage below.

"Okay, time to go," Luffy announced before once more scooping Cobra and Robin back into his arms and darted back around the Wall towards the hole they'd climbed in through, with Lee hot on their heels. She slowed only long enough to scoop up her belongings before leaping through the hole after the lad, then she hit the ground running, dodging and weaving around falling debris.

* * *

"Hey," the boy called over to her, dodging left around falling stone, "the king said you're this Dragonborn thingy. That true? And what _is_ a Dragonborn?"

"Yes," Lee replied, dodging right, "though I'm surprised people still remember that tale after so long. A Dragonborn is an otherwise normal mortal born with the soul of a dragon."

"That's so awesome!" The boy leapt over a fallen chunk of stone, propelled by his excitement. The woman slung over his shoulder was ready to protest their chatty exuberance, though.

"You seem quite nonchalant, talking like this while a building collapses around you."

"This isn't so different from what I used to do," Lee admitted, swerving around a boulder that fell just in front of her. "I'd go diving down ancient burial crypts all the time. Never had one collapse on me before, but they were all full of traps and walking corpses, so this isn't too far off."

"Shishishi!" The boy laughed and picked up speed in his run. "So cool! A dragon-lady adventurer that fights zombies! It's decided! When we get out of here, you gotta join my pirate crew!" The man under his arm opened his mouth to protest but was cut short when the boy dodged around another stone.

Rays of daylight soon came into view, and with the rest of the path to the door free of rubble, it was a mad dash to get out the door before that fact changed. Once Lee felt the full exposure of the sun and open air, it was a visceral reminder that _this is not Skyrim anymore._ Where once the sun had been pleasantly warm against the chill northern air, now it baked down, combining with the arid air to both tighten the skin on Lee's face and make her immediately break out in a sweat—though admittedly the fur lining in her clothes didn't help any. With the College of Winterhold most likely disbanded by now, she was sure no one would object to her making a few modifications to the Archmage's robes.

"Woo!" The boy hooped and hollered, leaping into the fresh, open air before setting down his two passengers and throwing his hands into the air triumphantly. "We made it!"

His cheer was relatively short lived, as he immediately began to keel over backwards once the words left his mouth. Lee only just managed to catch him before his head hit the ground, but he was already snoring away with a content look on his face, unbothered by his wounds in the void of unconsciousness. Lee conjured up the energy for a healing spell to soothe the boy's injuries, but the soft orange glow fizzled on her fingers. Taken aback, her eyes snapped to her hand, and she flexed her fingers experimentally, trying to call up her magicka. There was a soft, short spark of light around her fingers, but it died as soon as she attempted to actually cast the spell. It reminded her of when she'd attempted to cast a spell but didn't have enough magicka in her reserves, which made little sense; she had trained herself to have magicka reserves to rival the previous Archmage, and this was a basic restorative spell. Her magicka ought to be regenerating as quick as she could cast.

"What's wrong," the woman asked when she noticed Lee's frustrated scowl?

"I'm trying to cast a damn healing spell to help him," she nodded towards the boy, "but my magic isn't wanting to cooperate."

"Magic?" Asked the older man. "You practice _actual_ magic?"

"Well, I like to think I'm good enough I don't need much practice anymore, but apparently I was wrong," she joked, of course, but recognized that his question had been genuine. "Yes, I do, and I take from your question that the clever craft has been on the decline in recent ages." She shifted and slung her pack around to her front and pulled the boy up onto her back and stood. "Regardless, since I can't treat everyone's wounds myself, it's best we get the lot of you some proper medical attention."

"You three get back to the palace," said the woman, who held a hand to the wound on her chest and turned to leave. "I'll be on my way… Cobra, if you do end up questioning Miss Dragonborn on her adventures, do the world—and me—a favor and make sure to get it all written down."

The man, now addressed as Cobra, turned a stern gaze upon the woman. "Still so eager to meet your own end, Nico Robin? One would think you'd want to be the first to write down any newly discovered history, yourself."

"I do," Nico Robin admitted freely, glancing over her shoulder to Cobra and then to Lee. "As an archaeologist, my greatest urge is to discover every hidden truth about the past. But at the same time, my only reason for living has slipped through my hands, so I don't see much point in claiming the honors here." She looked away and began a solemn march.

"Miss Robin," Lee spoke up after a moment's hesitation, catching the other woman's attention, "I don't know what exactly is going on, so it probably isn't my place to say so, but there's always reasons to live, no matter how small." She seemed to consider Lee's words for a few moments, but soon picked her pace back up without a word in response.

* * *

 **A/N: Okay so I meant to get this up last night, but by the time I looked at the clock it was already midnight and I had to hit the hay. Unfortunately, chapter three is only just started, so it won't be up quite as fast as this one, and I can't make promises for timing. Fear not, though, as I have no intention of letting this story fall to the wayside. It's just gonna be kinda slow going most of the time.**

 **A few things before I say farewell; 1, Lee's sarcophagus being warm in the first chapter and ice cold in this one isn't a discrepancy, I did that on purpose. 2, next chapter will touch a lot more on Lee's backstory, skills and the gear she brought with her.**

 **Thanks to dukefan01 and Bigpizza for the reviews, and thank you all again for reading, I hope you enjoy, and remember; reviews, no matter how simple, feed my soul and keep me hale, hearty and inspired.**


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